


these thoughts were not eternity: side gold

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Collegestuck, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7948960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Befriending Katya Levin isn't the end. It's the beginning.</p><p>Your name is Simon Cao and - years later - you keep thinking about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these thoughts were not eternity: side gold

**Author's Note:**

> sequel to "an unconnected me, yet a connected me"

_In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal_  
_sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky_  
_waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart_  
_worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in_  
_the night-time red downtown heaven_  
**staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering  
** **these thoughts were not eternity,** nor the poverty  
_of our lives, irritable baggage clerks,_  
_nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the_  
_buses waving goodbye,_  
_nor other millions of the poor rushing around from_  
_city to city to see their loved ones…_

\- Allen Ginsberg, _In The Baggage Room At Greyhound_  

 

* * *

 one-word prompts stolen from [here](http://artjournalist.com/2013/04/one-word-art-journal-prompts/)

**201\. Why - June 2007 - Simon Cao**

Krishna oftentimes asks you what broke the old college-era triad, as if he can glue it back together with Krishna-typical determination and unconditional positive regard, and you told him, you tell him that you’re giving him and Cat a blessing in disguise. Krishna deserves someone who wouldn’t hurt him, and Katya deserves someone who has never hurt her. Vehement conversations where Cat begged him to stop protesting before he got shot aside, you don’t even think they’ve actually had real fights. They’re both idealistic and mostly whole.

You are cynical and mostly broken, you don’t need a doctor to tell you that. There’s an uncomfortable history between you and Katya (Yekaterina on the attendance sheet, Katya in gym class ten thousand years ago, Cat in front of Kent Hall five thousand years ago), and you are no history teacher. Neither is she. Krishna can fill in his own blanks.

Dolo seems as if she wants to interfere, and you sort of want to tell her to fuck off. Marisol definitely wants to interfere, and you most definitely want to tell _her_ to fuck off.

You never ruined any relationship. The relationship was ruined as soon as Krishna and Katya made room for you. At least, that’s what you tell yourself, to make everything easier to swallow.

Your mind stays fixated on the woman with the red hair, your best friend since you were fifteen. As of June 9th, you are thirty. She has been your best friend for exactly half your life. You can’t not think about her.

Sometimes, she meets your gaze measure for measure in the hallway, and you wonder if (hope that?) she’s thinking about you too.

**13\. Friendship - September 1992 - Simon Cao**

This is how it begins, by your account.

Formerly bullied sophomore with awful lisp saves currently bullied freshman with a hearing aid from the assholes in the hallway.

Formerly bullied sophomore considers his good deed for the year complete, except something about currently bullied freshman gives him pause. Her hearing aid. The way she expects nothing from anyone. The way she wears long sleeves and skirts on eighty degree days.

Formerly bullied sophomore wonders if currently bullied freshman has something to hide beneath that clothing. A few instances where the razor slipped, perhaps. 

Formerly bullied sophomore hunts down currently bullied freshman after school. The former finds out that the latter is only so unseasonably clothed because she is a (merely somewhat lapsed) Orthodox Jew, which should have ended formerly bullied sophomore’s interest, but instead piqued it even further.

Set formerly bullied sophomore and currently bullied freshman to equal x and y respectively. Where x is less than or equal to Simon Cao, reigning king of straight razor blades, and y is less than or equal to Yekaterina (what a long name) Levin, poet, artist, and pain in the ass.

The rest is history.

These are parts of that history.

**5\. Imagination - November 1992 - Simon Cao**

You didn’t think it was possible to acquire a best friend in two months, but somehow, you have. You take her to Tompkins Square Park, and instead of sprinting back toward the safe side of the East Village, she sits down and starts drawing a saxophone player.

You lean over her shoulder to watch her process, and she does not ask you to give her space. She does not ask why you never seem to want to give anyone space. 

In the case of the moments where you furiously get up into the faces of asshole upperclassmen, it’s because you actually believe you can take them in a fight. Then, they knock you loopy and restore equilibrium to the universe.

In her case, it’s because you keep getting scared she’ll realize you’re a hopeless head case, that your vitamins are mood stabilizers. Then, she’ll turn on her heel, and leave you behind. She assures you that you’re far too interesting for that.

Nevertheless, you help her with Geometry to seal the deal.

It’s also because she always smells nice. Like sweat, graphite, and brilliance, as opposed to cigarettes and weariness. You don’t have a crush on her, though. She’s too self-righteous for that. You ask her to draw you.

She stares at you with her probing, chatoyant, green eyes, as if she’s already mentally creating a preliminary sketch, then informs you that you’d have to sit still for the whole thing.

“Well shit, that’s out, then,” you respond.

She laughs with such genuine joy that you actually smile for her.

You continue to be a headcase.

**280\. Weakness - December 1995 - Simon Cao**

You are made aware of your fragility during your last attempt on your life, coughing up charcoal ashes and pill remnants, with your heart rate like the beat of hummingbird wings. But the activated charcoal is too little, too late. Your heart won’t slow down.

You die once, Simon, and much to your complete lack of surprise, there’s absolutely nothing on the other side. Just the black wave of somnolence until they bring your sorry ass back with a defibrillator.

Later, she comes to visit you, all ruddy cheeks and nose, lying about her age to get past orderlies, tears and eyeliner streaming down her face. It’s not Carolyn, no. You would have welcomed Carolyn. She would have been there to take back the breakup.

Instead, Katya comes, and she stays and she holds your hands and she’s enraged in her sadness, she rages at you, and squeezes your fingers until they go red as her hair, and she demands to know why you’d do this without telling her.

You insist to her that you would have set her free from you, from having to worry about you. Look at her worrying now, when she should be working on supplemental essays for her college applications.

“That blessing in disguise line is total bullshit, Simon.” she says. “This had nothing to do with me, and more to do with Carolyn, and academic probation.”

The woman in the green and gold striped shirt exhales vehemently, with her anguish mapped out across her face. Well, she’s always seen you for you, and that includes your motivations.

“Promise me you won’t try this again,” she goes on.

You raise your hands slowly. “Now, Cat, you know I can’t make that kind of fucking pro--”

“Promise me!”

“Okay, okay, I promise,” you say hastily.

She quotes Ginsberg at you on her way out the door, and it’s a testament to how well you know her that you can recognize her poets.

_“These thoughts are not eternity.”_

For what it’s worth, you keep the promise. Through the light times, the gray times, the dark times, through work, through everything. You self-injure, you drink yourself insensate, but you stop trying to die. Each time you think about it, you remember Katya. Her concern and her fury.

Then, you contemplate college, and the indignity of being on academic probation next term.

**284\. Prepare - Simon Cao - January 1995**

“What’s the SAT like?” Katya asks you one afternoon, in Washington Square Park. You’ve got your head on her shoulder and she’s got one of her arms thrown around you. “I’ve taken practice exams, but I haven’t done the real thing yet.”

“How’d you do on the practice exams?”

“Highest score, 1440,” she informs you.

You do admit to her that it’s not a bad score by any means. Good enough to get her into an Ivy, maybe.

“Thanks for the flattery, but you haven’t answered my question, Si.”

“It’s awful, Cat. A whole bunch of guards line up around the perimeter of the room and hold you at gunpoint,” you begin. “Then some preacher looking guy with a booming voice informs you that this exam will determine the trajectory of the rest of your life, and if you get below a 900, all those guys will take you out back and shoot you.”

“Why do I ever ask you anything?”

“I have no idea.”

She wrinkles her nose and shrugs. Launches into another barrage of questioning.

“So you’ve applied to like nine colleges,” she says. “Where do you actually want to go?”

You answer without thinking. “NYU, probably. Carolyn’s a great student, maybe she can put in a good word about me to some of the department heads.”

Cat pulls away ever-so-slightly.

“All this time I thought Columbia was your dream school,” she says. “Since sophomore year it’s been Columbia this, Columbia that. You even took a class summer before junior year.”

She says “before junior year” with emphasis, and you know she means, “before you started seeing Carolyn”. So you decide to fuck with her just a bit.

“Mine or yours?”

“You know what I mean.”

You sigh.

“Yeah, I do. And sometimes dreams change. This way I can spend even more time with Caro, y’know, improve our relationship.”

“Is that what you actually want?” she wants to know.

You’ve been playing a mental game of handball with yourself for the last six months, weighing the pros and cons. And honestly, you’re not sure. But Carolyn would be hurt to hear you say that. Even if she can’t hear you right now, you don’t want to say something that would hurt your girlfriend.

Besides, maybe spending more time with her will be good. You’ll see her in the field, doing her research for Environmental Science. You’ll be able to understand her better.

“It’s what I want,” you reply.

Katya stretches her arms skyward, eyes considering your face.

“And if you get into NYU and Columbia? It’s not unlikely to happen. Besides, Columbia will give you more financial aid.”

You’re really trying not to think about that.

You rather miss the days before Katya figured out how to blame everything that she no longer liked about you on your girlfriend. You miss her being on your side.

**191\. Communication - Simon Cao - November 1993**

You decide to tell Katya about Carolyn on a 40 degree day when the both of you are outside, because Katya wants to practice sketching pigeons (why), and you want to chain smoke. She sits on the ground, with her skirt riding up a bit to expose some stocking-clad thigh.

You remember your parents yelling at Jackie to sit like a lady.

Oh yeah, that’s another reason you’re telling her about Carolyn. You keep secret how Katya comes to school in regular Orthodox Jewish girl clothing and then changes into regular fifteen year old girl clothing in the bathroom before first period. She’s trying to woo some dude in her Chemistry class with her fashion choices or something, you don’t fucking know. Girls are a mystery.

Still, she owes you. You could have totally dropped a dime to someone. Maybe her brother. Yasha kind of approves of your existence. Sure he’d strangle you if he found out she cut class a bunch of times last year to hang out with you, but you two have a free period in common now, so that’s practically ancient history.

“I met a girl,” you tell Katya, without any prelude.

“You meet a lot of girls.”

“No, but, like, a real girl. A lady.”

“A lady,” Katya repeats.

“I’m actually sort of dating her,” you go on.

The grin that blooms on Katya’s face is just this side of creepy. She starts rubbing her hands together and you doubt it’s because she’s cold. You wait for her to get her Trig notebook out to start updating her shipping wall.

“I’m so purroud of mew!” she exclaims.

You flinch and nearly drop your cigarette. You scratch the back of your head with your free hand.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“Wherefur did you meet her?” Katya wants to know.

You tell her about your exploits at the Electric Warehouse, how there was this chick named Carolyn who seemed to like you. Like, she liked you enough to take her back to her place. You leave out the part about how you were higher than a 747 at the time.

“She goes to NYU,” you say. “She’s a graduate student, so you can’t tell anyone.”

Katya claps a hand over her mouth, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Oh my god! Furrbidden love! I will take your secret with me to the grave!”

The girl reads entirely too many romance novels.

“Awesome.”

Katya even meets Carolyn once, the three of you eating dinner in Caro’s dining room. Caro even makes sure all the food was perfectly kosher. Katya’s rendered a little starry eyed by how expensive everything in your girlfriend’s apartment seems to be, but otherwise, she’s her usual bubbly self.

Carolyn thinks Katya’s charming, and Katya thinks she’s adorable.

The two most important women in your life like each other. It’s perfect. 

Katya even gets along with Giant Hulking Bastard, because apparently he’s fluent in Russian. They conduct a conversation you can’t understand before she leaves, looking then as if she wants to say something to you, but won’t.

It’s less perfect when you decide to leave home, wheeling most of your worldly possessions behind you in a suitcase, an aloe plant in one of your arms. When you call Katya from a pay phone to give her the details on what you’ve done, she doesn’t sound nearly as happy.

“Are mew sure this is the right thing?”

“My parents are always pissed at me, and now they’re even more pissed because I keep staying out late to be with my girlfriend.”

“If I did half the things mew did, my parents would kill me,” Katya says. “I’d be kind of mad at you too.”

“Yeah, well, if you have any better ideas as to how I’m supposed to be with her, I’m all ears.”

She doesn’t. She suggests you call your parents when you get there - dial *67 so they can’t trace your number - just so they know you haven’t been kidnapped and sold to pirates or something. You agree, if it’ll get the worry out of her tone.

“The plot thickens!” she says. You try to stifle a snort. She adds, “I have a question.”

“Go for it, Katya.”

“Can I be Benvolio?”

You stare at the phone in confusion.

“Can you be what?”

“It’s not a what, you clawful moron, it’s a who!”

“What?”

“Well, if you and Carolyn are like Romeo and Juliet, I want to be Benvolio.”

Figures. One of her literary references. She’s chock full of them.

“Who the fuck is Benvolio?”

“He’s Romeo’s best friend. He keeps the peace and prevents Romeo furrom doing stupid shit.”

You laugh once, dryly.

“Katya, you were always Benvolio.”

She was. She is. She will be. The keeper of your leash. The girl who worries when you start showing up to school drunk more often than usual. Who asks if Carolyn knows about this. You insist that she doesn’t, because Katya would probably wonder on your girlfriend’s sanity if you said she did.

Katya says you should tell her. You counter that Carolyn makes you happy, so you don’t want to make her unhappy.

“If you’re so happy, how come you’re always hammered?”

You don’t know how to answer that.

**226\. Adventure - April 1994 - Simon Cao**

“C’mon Katya, you gotta go to prom with me. I can’t go without a date,” you beg her. “And I’ve never been wasted on a yacht before!”

Junior prom is going to be held on one. You can get your sea legs and probably end up puking over the side of aforementioned yacht.

“Carolyn doesn’t have a yacht?” Katya asks.

“Her family does, but I’ve never been on it. It’d be kind of awkward to introduce me to family at the moment.”

“I cannot, fur the life of me, imagine why.”

Oh, she’s got jokes. No matter. So do you.

“Don’t act like you don’t want to go so you can put the moves on that guy from your chem class.”

Katya turns bright red, scandalized. That’s a yes.

“I was hoping to go with him,” she says, with a huff.

“But, he hasn’t asked you yet, otherwise you’d have turned me down outright,” you figure.

Her frown deepens.

“Why do you even want me to go to with you? I’m a sophomore!”

“You can go to prom as long as your date’s a junior, idiot.”

“Explain why you’re not taking your actual girlfriend?”

You didn’t expect that one. You wrack your brains for a bullshit excuse.

“She’s got finals to study for, and um… well… she, uh….”

“She could probably get arrested if she goes with you.”

“Yeah, there’s that.”

“Simon, you are an unmitigated disaster.”

“Nice use of your of SAT words there.”

Katya kicks you in the leg.

“Screw you.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I’ll go with you,” she says, pausing before she continues, “if.”

“If?”

“If you learn how to moonwalk.”

You cannot believe your ears.

Way to bring up the past, Cat. The only reason why she’s doing it is because you decided to serenade her, wasted, after your poetry class. And you chose Michael Jackson’s _“Remember the Time”_ because it seemed most likely to annoy her.

“Are you serious?” you want to know.

“Yes, I’m theriouth.”

Low blow. Why’s she angry at you this time? She’s been mad ever since you pulled that stunt.

“If I’m going to prom with you as your second choice, I have a few stipulations,” she explains. You roll your eyes.

“No fair, I’m your second choice too. Only ‘cause Chemistry guy didn’t ask you.”

She looks very much like she’d like to hit you, balling up one of her fists. Then, she shakes it out, and sighs at you.

“And what if you weren’t my second choice?”

Hold on. What?

“I’m not your first choice,” you say slowly. “Therefore, I refuse to entertain any hypotheticals.”

“You sort of were, Simon.”

You could live a trillion years and never understand girls.

“Me? Why?”

“Because we are very good friends, and I thought we might have fun,” she says, making it sound all logical. “Then, mew embarrassed the shit out of me, so I’m only going with you if you learn how to moonwalk.”

“You are such a pain in my ass sometimes, you know that?”

Katya grins like she’s glad of it.

“Better get to practicing, then. Purrom’s in six weeks, Mr. Jackson.”

Your revelation that you’re going to your own hard-earned junior prom is met less than enthusiastically by Carolyn. She picks at her dinner with her fork, and finally pushes the plate away, clearly in a blue study.

She frowns. “You got someone to go with you?”

“Yeah. Cat, duh,” you reply. “Although she’s all like, I won’t go with you unless you learn how to moonwalk, but I think she’s just fucking around.”

Carolyn slowly turns to face you.

“Why her?”

“She’s my best friend, Caro. It’s going to suck going without you, but Cat’ll probably make it suck less. We can make fun of all the couples.”

Your girlfriend says nothing for a while. Later, you’d realize it was jealousy, but not before you actually went to the fucking event.

**33\. Dance - Simon Cao - May 1994**

One late afternoon, about four days before junior prom, you manage to perform a spazzed out shuffle that sort of resembles the moonwalk, if you squint real hard. During Poetry class, Katya pronounces it acceptable.

“Gonna be hard to find a dress on short notice though, won’t it?” you ask.

“I already bought my dress.”

Were you right or were you right? You just fucking knew she’d go with you regardless.

“What color is it going to be?” you ask.

“Don’t see why that’s your concern,” she replies. “Unless you don’t _believe_ me.”

If there were an olympic medal for being a consistent pain in the ass, Katya would have won the gold.

“Or, if I wanted to get you a corsage, idiot.”

Katya blinks. “What’s a corsage?”

It’s taken more than a year, but you finally know a word that she doesn’t. You give her the run-down on the concept, and explain that it should probably match her dress, which is why you need the color.

“Olive,” she replies. “With gold accents.”

You should have gotten her to take a picture, but she sketches it out for you, pointing out the green parts, and the yellow parts. So a corsage of yellow roses, then. You say exactly this to her, and she smiles. 

A smile you momentarily wish you were an artist for, because she doesn’t smile like that very often. You take a mental snapshot.

“Leave it to you to know about all the plant-related aspects of purrom,” she says, bopping you gently on the nose with her index finger.

The first thing you think when you see her the day of junior prom is that, for once, her art did not do its subject justice. Her green dress is long sleeved and floor length, with a high, prim collar. It’s got a little gold bow around her waist, and she’s wearing earrings the same color. You never knew she had pierced ears. As soon as you see her, you hug her, and affix her corsage to her wrist.

You don’t miss the faint flush of her cheeks.

All that talk of you being her first choice sounds… a little different now.

“I’ve never been to a gathering like this,” she confesses.

“Neither have I. So I got an idea.”

“Yes?”

“Time to start winging it.”

She sighs. “My parents only let me go to this with heavy reservations.”

“I thought they gave up being Orthodox.”

“Old habits die hard,” she muses, and then abruptly. “Yasha was in favor of my going.”

One of these days, you’ll come by her house - sober and everything - and high five her brother.

Once you’re on the yacht proper, having snuck your contraband thermos of vodka past the deans, you watch Katya eat her dinner. She’s not like Carolyn, dainty and dignified. She shovels food into her mouth and talks with a mouthful of potatoes. You desperately want to hand her a napkin.

“Mmmph good mmmph,” she says, and swallows. “It’s good, I meant. The food. Probably should have swallowed first.”

You arch an eyebrow. “That’s what she said.”

She punches you right in the arm. You’re going to feel that next week.

After about half an hour bereft of pervy commentary, you pour at least a shot and a half of your vodka into your glass of coke. Everyone sitting at your table - friends and acquaintances all - look unsurprised. Katya rolls her eyes.

“How on earth did mew get that past the deans?”

“Stuffed it down my pants, and walked past Ms. Cheri, who asked ‘is that a thermos of vodka in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?’ and then kept walking.”

Everyone laughs, even Katya. You dump a shot into her nearly-full glass. She looks at you as if you’ve lost your goddamn mind.

“C’mon, Cat, there’s a first time for everything,” you joke. “I won’t let you fall off the boat.”

Her eyes flash, and you momentarily think she’s going to punch you again. Instead, she drains about a third of her glass.

“You’re on, Simon,” she promises, probably taking this as a challenge. She drinks the rest of her drink. “You know, this isn’t bad when you mix it with something.”

“Want another?”

“Um…” she thinks for a moment. “Not yet.”

The whole dancing thing starts out as a series of couples very pointedly not trying to cop a feel when the deans are watching, and quickly devolves into chaos. You blame whoever made the playlist. You can’t play triphop and expect people to keep their hands to themselves.

Eventually, you and Katya are the only people left at your table, and some of the few among your peers to remain sitting down.

“Wanna dance?” you ask.

Katya points to the nearest couple, who are… for lack of a better term, sucking face like they’ll die if they come up for air.

“Like that, Simon?” she asks. “It’s disgusting.”

You have to hear the rationale behind this. “Disgusting?”

“Yeah, like…” Katya pauses. “I know they’ve only been dating fur a month, and they already do that in public?”

You know they already do that on a regular basis outside your Calculus class, so yeah. You say exactly that, and Katya wrinkles her nose.

“I thought that was supposed to be reserved fur… someone special.”

“They’re special enough to each other.”

“They’ve been dating for a month.”

Oh yeah. Katya was raised by weirdos. You take her hand and forcibly drag her onto the dancefloor.

“We don’t have to do that,” you promise. “We can just dance, and stuff.”

“I can’t dance.”

“Me neither. C’mon, it’s prom. You gotta make a fool of yourself. Just wing it.”

She does. She turns almost fluid in your arms, and you keep having to remind yourself, “hey Simon, you have a girl back at Gramercy Park who will kill you if she finds out about this.” You take another swig from your bottle. Katya confiscates it and swills some of it down.

“It’s clawful.”

“My dancing?”

“Your drink.”

The music turns more frenetic. Katya copies her peers and practically grinds against you. Your head spins and you stare at her like she’s lost her fucking mind. Again. Then, Chemistry guy cuts in and asks her for a dance.

She looks at you - torn between amusement and hesitancy. You tell her to go enjoy herself.

Besides, those two girls over there, who are also performing salacious dance moves with each other, look like they could use a third person. 

Judging from their enthusiasm once you arrive, they do not object in the least. You end up sandwiched between them. Hell yeah. God has smiled upon you on this night. You are going to very conveniently forget to tell Carolyn about this.

You’ve got a hand on the lowest part of the waist of the girl in front of you when you glance over at Katya. She meets your gaze measure for measure. Then, she exchanges a few words with Chemistry boy and exits the dancefloor.

Far be it from you to reject what has been put right in front of you, but your date is now nowhere to be found.

You find her out on the boat’s deck, looking out at nothing in particular. You sidle up behind her.

“If Chem guy was too forward, I’ll totally break his neck for you,” you say to her.

Katya sneers. “He wasn’t too forward at all. He was a perfect gentleman.”

“Dude, his hand was practically on your ass.”

“You’re one to talk!”

Wait, is Katya… mad at you? Again? What in the hell did you do this time?

“Chill out. I was just having a little fun.”

“A little fun,” she repeats. “Do mew even know their names?”

“The girls I was dancing with?”

“Who else?”

“Uh, no,” you admit.

“Disgusting,” she says, for the second time that night.

“You didn’t seem to mind when I was dancing with you.”

Then, the light catches her face, and you notice that she’s on the verge of tears. Is she a melancholy drunk? No way is she already drunk, her voice is too steady. A possibility too weird to contemplate smacks you in the face like a basketball.

“Are you… _jealous?”_

She wipes her eyes. “No!” She amends her statement. “Fine. Maybe a little.”

Her color’s gone high again. You bring up your hand and cup her face.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her. And you are.

This is her first legit dance, and you acted like a moron. 

Instead of turning away, she rests her head on your shoulder.

Two tears rest on her cheeks, unmoving. You wipe them away.

That’s when she tilts her head up and kisses you full on the mouth.

The weirdest thing of all? You don’t push her away and remind her that you have a girlfriend. You sling an arm around her waist and kiss back.

Neither of you had drunk enough to blame it on the alcohol. But you two will anyway, later, on Monday, when you have to see each other at school. It’s the path of least resistance.

“That won’t happen again,” she swears, and while most of you is relieved, part of you is scared that she’s serious.

If grad school you went back in time and told you exactly how the cards would fall, you would have turned to him and said his medication needed to be upped.

**7\. Give - Simon Cao - August 2000**

You like it when Cat comes over and Krishna’s not around. You like it more than is strictly advisable, despite your stupid triad thing. You like it because it means she’s here to see _you_ and that makes your chest feel funny.

You are twenty-three and she is twenty-two and you have known her since you were fifteen and she was fourteen, and you still aren’t sure how to say, well, much of anything. So you let her in silently. Her green eyes glint, and she puts down the bags of food she’s brought over.

“And yes, I bought mew that clawful overpriced antipasto, so you’d better eat up before I start shoveling it down your throat.”

She puts a fork into your hand and rolls her eyes.

“That means ‘put out your cigarette’, Si,” she goes on. You tap it out in the ashtray and put it back into your mouth while she stands there and shakes her head, arms crossed.

“Yeah, fuck, whatever, Katya,” you reply. You have a way with words. “Thanks.”

You take the fork and dig into the antipasto.

You wish you could do art in any way, shape, or form.

She bitches goodnaturedly about how hot your apartment is, stripping down to her green and black underwear, her shirt flying across your apartment, her bra joining it, and her skirt pooling down at her feet.

You think of the first time you saw her naked, back in your freshman year of college, and what an oddly erotic sight it was.

Now, you just pop off with some smartass remark about how you could draw the Leo constellation across her boob freckles.

“Mew couldn’t draw a damn thing if your life depended on it,” she says.

She lets down her hair, tosses it away from her face, and leans further back in your chair, against you.

“I can draw circuits,” you point out.

“Doesn’t count.”

When she puts her head on your chest, she smells like paint and sweat. You massage her scalp with one hand the way she likes, and are awarded with one of her strange contented sounds. Times like these, she really does remind you of a cat, and you still love her to pieces. 


End file.
